5 Of The Best Speakers For Vinyl Records, According To Top Reviews

The resurgence of vinyl records as a medium for listening to music has been one of the most fascinating tech and entertainment stories of the past two decades. As physical media demand has dwindled, vinyl has thrived, passing CD sales in 2022 for the first time since 1987, with 41 million records sold compared to 33 million discs. Yes, CDs are still selling that well. And those figures don't include the used/secondhand market, which is particularly big for vinyl. 

Whether you're in it for the large packaging suitable for display, the ritual of playing records, genuinely thinking vinyl sounds better, or all of the above, old-school records are still big business, with record pressing plants constantly at full capacity.

If the sound quality and overall experience are your priority, setting up a proper hi-fi stereo system with a high-quality turntable is the way to go. There are various ways to do this, much of which comes down to budget, personal preference, and what kind of gear you already have. If you already have a receiver or amp — or access to a good deal on a used one — then you want passive speakers that the amp in question can drive. The same approach applies if you're building a stereo as part of a larger home theater. But if you're starting from scratch, you might be better off buying powered speakers with built-in amps and inputs.

With all this in mind, let's look at what the hi-fi experts have deemed the best speakers.

One name that comes up on multiple recommendation lists is French manufacturer Triangle. More specifically, its Borea series of home theater speakers. These are passive speakers, so you need to use them with a receiver or other amplifier to power them. The Borea series includes three tiers each of both bookshelf speakers and floor-standing/tower speakers; which you should get is up to your personal preference and budget.

The entire line won the 2020-2021 Expert Imaging and Sound Association award for the "best buy" in home theater systems, with the EISA blurb praising the speakers' "even frequency response, precise effects placement, and musicality." More specifically, the product shoot-out experts at The Wirecutter named the BR03 bookshelf speakers ($349 per pair at Amazon) as its top pick among passive bookshelf speakers, touting "extraordinary clarity and spaciousness plus plenty of bass." In 2022, when What Hi-Fi assembled its recommended sub-$2,000 turntable-centric stereo system, it went with the BR03s for the speakers, saying that "[f]or the money, they are savvy musical performers with a great sense of scale."

ZDNet, meanwhile, named the BR08 ($549 each at Amazon — towers are often not packaged as pairs) as the best floor-standers specifically for use with vinyl, saying, "You'll be blown away by the layered and cohesive sound." Alternatively, there's also a powered, Bluetooth-capable version of the BR03, the Borea Active BR03 BT ($699 per pair at Amazon), which includes a phono preamp and comes recommended by both AVForums and Soundstage Simplifi.

When it comes to speakers being recommended for use with turntables, one set of speakers keeps eliciting the same specific praise. That would be the Edifier R1280DB ($149.99 per pair at Amazon) and/or R1280DBs ($159.99 per pair at Amazon) powered bookshelf speakers, which are routinely dubbed the best budget speakers for pairing with a turntable. (The DBs is a newer model, but the older version is still easy to find.) There's no phono stage built in, so you need to either buy one or buy a turntable with one built-in, but even taking that into account, everyone seems to think this set is a fantastic deal.

Several publications have named these the best budget speakers for vinyl playback, like ZDNet, Popular Science, vinyl specialty website Vinyl Record Day, Sound Guys, and Louder. Other reviews from Tech Radar and Android Authority had similarly high praise for Edifier's speakers, with the latter saying, "$150 powered bookshelf speakers have no business being this good." Rolling Stone also singled them out for use with a turntable, saying that they have "a sound that spans eras, whether your records are new or classics."

At 42 watts, these aren't super powerful, so they may not be ideal for larger spaces. But for most people using them at home in the kind of setting that would fit a $150 pair of powered speakers, the consensus is that these are absolutely fantastic.

In the aforementioned Popular Science rundown of the best speakers for use with turntables, that outlet named the Fluance Ai81 Elite ($499.99 per pair at Fluance's Amazon store) as its pick for the best floor-standing speakers for such a use case. Going by other professional reviews, it seems pretty widely agreed that it's a very solid pair of powered towers. Digital Trends, for example, gave the pair a four and a half out of five stars rating and an Editors' Choice award, touting the speakers' "incredible soundstaging," "sleek and modern design," and "reasonable" price among the towers' pros. HowToGeek also threw in its own Editors' Choice award, saying they have "[e]xcellent sound quality for the price."

The audiophile sticklers at Sound and Vision also praised the Fluances, giving it a five out of five stars rating for value. (Though they went with three out of five stars for performance, you need to keep in mind that Sound and Vision is a publication that often reviews significantly more expensive high-end equipment.) "The Fluance Ai81 floor standing self-powered stereo pair is ideal for anyone looking for an affordable solution that provides better imaging and soundstage compared to almost any soundbar in this price range while retaining all the same conveniences," reads the review's summation. There's no phono stage built-in, though, so you'll need a turntable with one built-in or a separate preamp to go between the turntable and the speakers.

Suppose space is at a premium, but you still want to get something that can be fed a turntable and put out relatively powerful stereo sound, albeit not nearly as well-separated as a pair of stereo speakers. In that case, the Sonos wireless speaker models with analog inputs are well worth considering. You can choose from the Sonos Five ($549.99 at Best Buy) or the Sonos Era 300 with spatial audio support ($449.99 at Best Buy — it requires an added USB dongle for line-in), both of which come recommended by various professional reviewers' lists of the best speakers for vinyl use. And as Sonos speakers with analog inputs, if you already have other Sonos speakers in your home or are planning on buying some, these can beam anything feeding its analog inputs around the house digitally.

In its rundown of the best speakers for vinyl playback, Popular Science praised the Era 300's "[i]mmersive audio from a compact cinched design." In Louder's similar rundown, they noted, "[i]t might seem controversial to recommend Sonos for use with a turntable," but it was a great choice for existing Sonos system owners. What Hi-Fi, meanwhile, said that for vinyl playback, it provided "ample detail and fluid dynamics to each song, with songs thrown out into the room with the kind of scale and power we'd normally hear from much bigger speakers." ZDNet and Sound Guys were the outlets singling out the Sonos Five, calling it a strong all-in-one performer, while our own Sonos Era 300 review gave the spatial speaker a nine out of 10 score.

Another set of powered bookshelf speakers that are strongly recommended is the AudioEngine A5+ ($399.00 to $549.00 at AudioEngine's Amazon store, depending on if you want fully wired, Bluetooth-capable, or hi-res Bluetooth-capable). In ZDNet's roundup of the best speakers for vinyl, they named the A5+ the best overall speaker set for vinyl playback, singling out the "crisp" sound, volume levels, build quality, and powered USB ports for attached devices. They also made Vinyl Record Day's list, with that site saying that "[i]f you prioritize power, sound quality, and overall convenience, you'll definitely find Audioengine A5+ to be the best powered speakers for your turntable!"

As for other professional reviews, PC Mag gave the A5+ a 4.5 out of five stars rating, an Editors' Choice award, and a spot on their 2018 Best of the Year list. "It's a pleasure to review gear that advances convenience without sacrificing sound quality, and the Audioengine 5+ Wireless easily snags an Editors' Choice," reads the review, which also singled out how strong the hi-res Bluetooth performance was. CNET gave the speakers an 8.3 out of 10 rating and an Editors' Choice recommendation in 2012 — old standbys often keep being made for a reason — and praised the speakers' "phenomenal sound and [...] simple, attractive styling." Audio Science Review also praised the A5+ in their review, backed up by actual performance measurements, writing that the pair "produces truly high fidelity experience on your desktop."

As the title of this article states, at the heart of the methodology for picking the speakers listed is that they've gotten big marks in professional reviews. Even if you haven't heard of some of these outlets before, it helps to remember that there's a whole ecosystem of audiophile and hi-fi enthusiast media that may be entirely off your radar.

Though it wasn't the sole criterion, being singled out as being good for vinyl playback was a major consideration for making the list, so placement on other outlets' lists of such speakers that they reviewed themselves was a big help in getting our attention. If a specific speaker or model series of speakers appeared on multiple lists, then it was much more likely to be considered here. Supplementing those kinds of recommendations with other professional reviews was then used to help narrow down the choices and help flesh out what each speaker brings to the table.

We also tried to avoid recommending anything too expensive. Speakers can run up to some astronomical prices, but for the average person, the sweet spot is far below the level of ridiculously high-end speakers that are sold for thousands to even tens of thousands of dollars. The hope was that everything that made sense to pick came in below $3,000 for a stereo pair, and everything that was included is priced way under that mark.